We love a good cookie. Thankfully, Walt Disney World has several great places to find one. Over at Disney Springs, many consider Gideon’s Bakehouse to be the supreme choice. Has that changed since Summer House on the Lake and their fantastic cookie bar moved in? Let’s find out.
Admittedly, we’ve been big Gideon’s fans for the past few years. That said, we were excited for the new cookies in town. No biases here. We went into this cookie showdown with open minds. No more talk, it’s cookie time!
Summer House on the Lake Cookie Review
Our journey started over at Summer House on the Lake. We didn’t want our dinner to just be cookies, so we sat down and had a great meal. Dinner review to come! (Spoiler: We loved it). Then, we moved on to heart of this article – the cookie bar.
The cookie bar is as impressive as it looks in pictures. Giant cookies fill the display case. There’s a big selection of flavors here, which makes narrowing it down difficult. Of course, you could always do what we did and buy several to fully indulge.
We chose chocolate chip, M&M, and apple oatmeal.
We thought the apple oatmeal was the best of the three. Both the chocolate chip and the M&M had a base cookie that just didn’t pack much punch. That said, we thought the apple oatmeal flavor could be dialed up a bit to be more prominent. All of these cookies tasted very safe, which is a sharp contrast to how they look visually. The cookies were pretty good, but didn’t blow our mind.
Pros:
- There’s a big selection with flavors for everyone
- The cookies are wide, but not too thick – it’s easy to get a big bite
- No big line or wait!
Cons:
- We found the cookies were soft, but a bit dry
- There wasn’t as much flavor as we expected
- Nothing was super memorable
Gideon’s Bakehouse Cookie Review
Gideon’s is known for its Haunted Mansion meets Nightmare Before Christmas vibes and its enormous cookies. Gideon’s cookies are much more compact, which makes them a heavier cookie compared to those at Summer House. They’re quite dense.
On our visit we got the chocolate chip and the dark coffee cake. The latter is only available after sunset, so that’s a stipulation you need to keep in mind.
The dark coffee cake cookie was new to us, and we think it delivered. It was a nice blend of chocolate and coffee cake without being too rich or too sugary. That said, we don’t like that you can’t just order it whenever you want.
Our chocolate chip cookies were as good as ever. Big, rich, dense. We’ve gone to Gideon’s on multiple occasions, and the chocolate chip cookie has never let us down.
Pros:
- Giant, thick cookies that can be enjoyed for days
- The chocolate chip cookie is a huge hit for chocolate lovers
- Bold flavors
Cons:
- The giant line (even with virtual queue) and cookie availability can be a headache
- Fewer types of cookies compared to Summer House
- Some may think there’s too much salt
And The Winner Is …
Time for our cookie verdict. We think both locations do cookies well, and each is worth checking out. But, like Highlander, there can be only one. Our vote for the best cookies in Disney Springs goes to … Gideon’s Bakehouse!
This was a tough choice. We love that Summer House on the Lake has almost every cookie variety you can think of. Unfortunately, none of the cookies we tried wowed us. We thought our dinner was outstanding, but the cookies didn’t taste or seem very special outside of their large size. Maybe it was just an off day?
Meanwhile, Gideon’s just always hits right for us. The wait is pretty ridiculous and can skew the ratings, but we’ll just enter the virtual queue (if there is one) and continue to shop or eat around Disney Springs. We’ll grab a few cookies on the first day of our trip and enjoy them for days.
We know our answer will be polarizing. People are passionate about their cookies! Let us know which place you like better in the comments.
